A Dark Cloud
I am the adult child of alcoholics.
The alcoholism that I grew up was not the dramatic stuff of movies characterized by abuse or blackouts. My experience of living with alcoholics manifested as my becoming suspicious, not trusting, staying quiet, becoming overly self reliant at an early age, and not knowing quite what to expect.
This is the hardest post for me to write. The idea for this blog came nearly a year ago. From the earliest writing I did, this piece was a struggle. Whether or not to write it? What to write? Is it necessary/relevant/important to share? How much to tell? What will people think/believe/say as a result of what I write?
My clarity on these questions came around discerning my vision for this project. My vision has two major pieces:
To share my own story of growth and transformation with a high level of honesty and openness;
Thereby encouraging others to walk along the same path, utilizing my experience as an example that can assist them.
Being true to this vision means telling this part of the story. The alcoholism in my family is an integral and foundational part of who I am and what I have experienced.
This post is not to blame or shame. I loved my parents and each of them had many terrific qualities that you could see from a mile away. They taught me a lot and gave me many of the tools I needed to become a successful adult, a good partner, and a great mother. What I have come to understand as I have gotten older is that they had a lot of challenges separately and together that they were unable to cope with, and the drinking was their coping mechanism.
In my mind, my father was a man with the genetic predisposition of alcoholism and he struggled for all of his life with this addiction. When my brother, sister and I were very young, my mother insisted that my father stop drinking. He did, and he went to AA for years; he had sober friends, he called his sponsor, he attended meetings. Then, when I was about 19, he sat us down and told us that he was going to start drinking again; that he believed he had done the work and made the necessary changes required to handle alcohol. I remember the conversation so clearly, and I remember it made me feel very nervous. From that point forward, I found that my trust in him faltered. Although he sometimes drank openly, he did a lot more drinking in a secretive way, and the secrecy was as impactful as the drinking itself. He wanted us to believe he was not drinking much, when in fact he was drinking quite a bit. His mood would change and he would become more lively, happier, more social and more relaxed. These are not bad qualities, but looking back at these times - I know I felt nervous, guarded and suspicious because I knew that he had been drinking.
My mother was not much of a drinker during my childhood, but as she headed towards her 50’s, she was gradually drinking more and more. My parents suffered a string of significant personal and financial losses around this time, and I think my mother was drinking wine to cope with all of it. By the time I was in my mid 30’s, both of them were drinking heavily. When they would visit my house they didn’t bring anything for my young children, or me; but they brought their wine and beer. When my mother drank she became more argumentative and belligerent and was hard to be around. Whenever I saw them I cherished her company in the morning, because she was like the mom I knew growing up, but then in the evening I found myself going to bed early to avoid her personality change brought on by the alcohol.
There were many situations once my siblings and I were in our college years and long into adulthood where my parents drinking disrupted special events, created emergency situations and caused a lot of heartbreak. A chronicle of these is not necessary.
What is necessary to understand is that I spent decades living in a deep sense of dread, whether I was with them or not. There had been enough incidents in person, and from a distance over the years to validate that dread. Living like that had a deep impact on me and that is why it is important for me share this piece of my background with you.
Living this way impacted how I parented, how I showed up in my marriage, how I lived on a day to day basis, and my expectations for myself. It impacted EVERYTHING - and understanding that, starting around age 45, gave me a powerful tool for transforming myself.
Have you taken a look at the issues in your own family of origin? It is usually deeply painful and working through it can feel impossible. And yet - there is light and clarity on the other side.
